


On your mark, get set

by Estelle (Fielding)



Series: B99 Season 7 Countdown Project [15]
Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Episode: s01e01 Pilot, Gen, Missing Scene, Pre-Relationship, early days of The Bet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-15
Updated: 2020-01-15
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:54:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22263673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fielding/pseuds/Estelle
Summary: “I’m winning!” “I hate this!”Jake and Amy go after the bad guys, reconsider the rules of their bet, and talk about what to expect of their new captain. Takes place during the pilot. (Basically, during the first five minutes of the pilot.)
Relationships: Jake Peralta & Amy Santiago
Series: B99 Season 7 Countdown Project [15]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1588849
Comments: 8
Kudos: 38





	On your mark, get set

**Author's Note:**

> Story No. 15 of my Season 7 Countdown Project.

Amy’s far more annoyed with herself than Peralta when he cracks the case so quickly. The nanny-cam was obvious, and she can’t keep giving him freebies like this when so much is on the line.

It’s not just her pride in her work – or her self-respect – at stake. Their new CO starts tomorrow and she is determined to make an outstanding first impression. She’s had her first-day suit dry-cleaned and hanging in the back of her closet for two weeks. She’s already determined everything from the shade of lipstick (Pink Empowered) and nail polish (Independent Nude) she’ll use that day to the positioning of her ponytail and what color hair tie she’ll use (perfectly centered and black, respectively). She’s at Inbox Zero on her email, in case he wants to check, and has made extra copies of every one of her cases for the past month just for his review.

If she knew their new captain’s name – Sarge has been unusually tight-lipped, except for revealing that the captain is a man – she’d have at least three binders of material by now, and it’s making her just a little bit (oh my God, a lot) anxious that her intended mentor-slash-rabbi is essentially a blind date at this point. But if anything goes wrong on their first day together, it’s not going to be on her end.

Except, there’s no accounting for the wild card. There’s nothing she can do about Jake Peralta.

+++

It only takes Jake an hour to track down the double-sleeve-tat suspect, and that guy gives up his partners about 30 seconds after they’ve knocked on his apartment door. They call in a squad car to take tat sleeves back to the Nine-Nine then head over to a dive that’s actually called The Pit to grab his buddies.

It’s the grimiest bar Amy’s ever set foot in – in fact, her left foot literally gets so stuck to the gummy floor that she panics for a moment that she’s going to have to leave it there and get Jake to help her hop out of the place on one foot. By the time she’s managed to unstick it, Jake has cuffed the other two perps, who were sitting at the near-end of the bar under the pink neon outline of a naked lady, drinking PBRs from the can, just as tat sleeves said they would be.

“You’re not getting three points for this one,” Amy says, as they march the suspects to their unmarked car. Jake tried that once, crediting himself with eight arrests for a single car theft (which didn’t even make any sense, honestly) in the first week of their bet.

“I think we need to re-evaulate the rules,” Jake says.

Amy rolls her eyes and deposits her perp in the backseat. When she closes the door, she finds Jake on the other side of the car, arms folded over the roof and a thoughtful look on his face that immediately gets her hackles up.

“The rules are final,” Amy says. She laminated them. They’re taped to walls in the kitchen, the break-, briefing- and copy-rooms, and all fourth-floor bathrooms.

“Okay, just hear me out,” Jake says, drumming his fingers. “The whole bet is who gets the most arrests, right? Not the most solves. So technically-”

“Fine,” Amy says, because she’s actually been thinking the same thing all along. “But we start with the next case. You can’t change the rules mid-case.”

“Deal,” Jake says.

He reaches his hand across the top of the car. Amy shakes, and squeezes hard enough to make the bones in his fingers crack. Jake winces dramatically and flaps his hand around when she lets go.

“You are terrifying,” he says.

“Thank you,” she says, and climbs into the car.

+++

On the drive back they talk about the new captain, which Amy knows makes Jake crazy because neither of them has any idea who he’ll be so there isn’t exactly a lot to discuss. It’s a fair point but Amy doesn’t care. This man is about to become the most important person in her professional life. She needs for him to be incredible – smart and brave and sophisticated and strong and honorable – and it’s as though by talking about him she can will him into being that man.

“What are you going to do if he’s another McGinley?” Jake says, when she’s paused to take a breath in her speculations.

Amy frowns but doesn’t answer right away. She glances out the side window instead. They’re driving past an elementary school, and it must be recess because kids in blue-and-white uniforms are racing out onto the blacktop; she can hear their screams and laughter through the glass.

“I don’t know,” Amy says. “Put in for a transfer?”

She feels Jake jerk his gaze toward her and she fights down a smile before turning toward him.

“You’d really leave if the new captain isn’t your rabbi?”

“He doesn’t need to be all that,” Amy says, sincerely. “But I can’t languish under another loser CO, Jake.”

Jake’s eyes are on the road again, and he nods slightly. “You’ll stay to the end of the bet though, right?”

Amy rolls her eyes. “That’s like six months.”

“Yeah, and?”

“Yes,” Amy says. “I’ll stay until you lose the bet.”

Jake laughs, but he doesn’t correct her.

+++

The elevator is out again at the Nine-Nine so they walk their perps up the stairs to the fourth-floor holding cell. Jake’s quiet on the climb up, and Amy realizes he hasn’t made one joke to the perps about catching them on a nanny-cam.

Amy hands her guy off and turns back toward the bullpen and- Jake’s right there, stepping into her personal space, so close that her heart lurches and her hands spring up, defensive. She takes a half-step back and just manages to keep herself from muttering an apology on reflex (she took a class on it a few weeks ago, called “Shut Your Mouth: You’re Not Sorry and That’s Okay”).

Jake gives her this look – a micro-look, really – that’s part surprise, part teasing big brother, and part something she can’t quite define (but is definitely not familial). He doesn’t step back, and he doesn’t look like he is about to apologize.

The moment passes and he walks off to his desk. Amy’s heart is still racing and she can feel her cheeks flushed warm, and she doesn’t know why and she’s not going to think too hard about it.

Tomorrow she’ll meet her rabbi. That’s what really matters.

**Author's Note:**

> *Title is from Bikini Babe Workout (Bash Brothers).
> 
> *There wasn’t much of a point to this fic other than that I wanted to do something from the pilot. And I’ve always loved that little exchange between them in those opening credits. When I realized that the rules of the bet in this episode were different from the rules we see in The Bet, I decided to incorporate that too. (In the pilot, Jake clearly gets one point for the opening scene case, even though there were at least two arrests, and probably three. In The Bet, he claims ten points for ten felony arrests from one prostitution sting.)


End file.
